In a conversation with Guillermo del Toro and Oscar Isaac, dropped online by GQ to promote the long-awaited collaboration between the cinema faves, the duo talked about how their Latin culture informed their take on Frankenstein.
Guillermo del Toro revealed he and Isaac were on the same page from day one: “I think that one of the things we connected over that dinner was our Latinness. Because obviously the shadow of the father looms differently in the Latin family, I believe.”
Isaac supplied, “[The] patriarchal thing, it’s so strong.”
The director nodded at his actor’s assessment of the way patriarchy comes into play in his film in a different tone due to their upbringing: “[And] the melodrama, and the drama of being blind to those flaws, you know, it’s very Mexican.” The filmmaker shared that he showed Isaac 1949’s La Oveja Negra (The Black Sheep) by Mexican filmmaker Ismael Rodríguez, which stars Pedro Infante, the iconic figurehead of machismo masculinity of a bygone old cinematic era—think Clark Gable en español.
Isaac shared how he sprinkled some of the star’s on-screen presence as he made his Victor’s masculine energy inspired by the Infante’s sweeping movements when he played key scenes, “We used that one moment when Jacob [Elordi] comes back to ask for a bride,” and described how the creator responded to his creature’s request, “and I just kind of walked by him and pushed him away. That was a little nod.”
From a filmmaking standpoint, del Toro elaborated on his intentionality: “Those moments for me are things that you determine only from a Latin culture. The swarthy Catholicism of the film. But I think the sort of pageantry of Catholicism, which verges on the operatic, you know, the intensity of emotions,”
Isaac agreed, “That’s why we talk about it being a story of outsiders. I talked to you a lot about that first meeting, which was like feeling like an outsider from the moment that [I] came from Guatemala to this country and constantly moving around and always feeling like a bit of an other.”
Isaac explained how this was something he experienced in trying to prove himself over the course of his career to play outside of the stereotypical Latino roles as his career evolved. “That kind of fed into this kind of myopic view of, like, excellence. The only way I can succeed is by being excellent and better than everyone else at this thing. And no matter what it costs, you know, that was something that definitely, I think, fed into Victor.”
To del Toro, this made Isaac the right choice for his leading man in his lifelong dream project: “The Victor that I really believe would be a fresh Victor is a Victor that had swagger and sensuality and flair.” The filmmaker came to that conclusion from his experiences as a Latino, which ended up mirroring how he would see Victor’s final form in the eventual film as it came into fruition as “reclaiming that for not a British actor, not an Anglo actor,” as it related to his connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. “We talked on the set and I said, ‘it’s not an accident that our Victor is played by, you know, Oscar Isaac Hernandez.’ And we reclaimed some of that energy.”
Isaac added how he tapped into that wavelength. “Yeah, exactly. At one point, you’re like, ‘A European would never make a movie like this’—the way that you were shooting it with these huge sets and also the way you direct; sometimes you’d be like, ‘I need the Maria Cristina,’” he said in reference to the classic telenovela move where an actor walks away to process an emotion before doing a dramatic physical reaction, whether it’s a full-body turn or gaping wide-eyed brows up in the high heavens look.
In Frankenstein it’s used with great gothic aplomb on purpose. Isaac shared the note del Toro gave him in a big moment opposite Mia Goth. “‘It was like you have to walk from his left shoulder past him and then you stop and you turn back,’” he recalled.
“It’s like a telenovela,” del Toro interjected.
Isaac reminisced, “You have to make this Mexican boy very happy,” he said in reference to the boy who grew up worshipping Frankenstein, who would at an older age approach him to play the complex anti-hero of Shelley’s text.
Affirming, del Toro added, “When people say, ‘What’s Mexican about your movies?’ I say, ‘Me. Yeah,” he laughed, celebrating how his culture permeates his creations. “What else do you want? I think you cannot deny what you are, who you are. And what moves you in any act of artistic expression ever, you know?”
Watch the rest of the interview below:
Correction: A previous version of this article cited Netflix as the source. In fact, it was originally shared by GQ.
Frankenstein is now in theaters and will be released on Netflix November 7.
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